The skin is said to be the largest organ in the human body. Like other organs of the body, the skin needs care to maintain it in optimal condition and treatment to cure it when it exhibits the symptoms of disease. Often the skin is maintained using skin care products, such as humectants, emollients, and vitamins; and is treated using medicinal agents. Although some agents used to treat the skin are administered orally, many agents are administered topically, and are generally known as topical skin care agents.
When administering topical skin care agents one of the main concerns is the ease of application to such a large organ. One common method of administering such agents to this large surface area consists of bathing the individual in a water bath, which contains the topical skin care agent. Although this method permits easy access to large areas of an individual""s skin, it is not without problems. One problem is caused by the fact that many topical skin care agents are not easily dispersed in the bath water. Many of these agents just clump in the bath water and settle to the bottom of the tub. Unfortunately this clumping and settling is unattractive to the user and often the clumping and settling reduces the effect of the topical agent. One such topical agents which is prone to clumping and settling when administered by bath water is oatmeal.
Oatmeal is known to soothe the itching sensation of the skin, which is associated with the common childhood disease, Chicken Pox. Typically a person who is afflicted with Chicken Pox has red itchy and painful xe2x80x9cpox typexe2x80x9d lesions covering their body. When an infected individual is bathed in a bath containing oatmeal, the itching associated with the lesions is alleviated. Unfortunately, oatmeal is not easily dispersed in water. Powdered bath formulations containing oatmeal are typically formulated with other materials to aid the dispersion of oatmeal into water. Often these powdered formulations may only be added to the bath by sprinkling small portions of the powder under a faucet of running water. Even with this method of adding the powdered formulation, the oatmeal often clumps and settles to the bottom of the bathtub and results in an inferior and incomplete treatment.
An alternate means of adding oatmeal to a bath is the use of an oatmeal bath tablet. Oatmeal bath tablets generally delivers significantly less oatmeal than the process described above.
Therefore, there is a need for a delivery system that provides less mess and more convenience than the current delivery systems for topical medicinal and skin care products. Additionally, because the topical medicinal and skin care products may be solids having small particle sizes, the delivery system should be designed to retain small particle size solids when in the dry state.
Others have attempted to produce delivery systems for applying colloidal oatmeal to a person""s skin. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,219,340 discloses an applicator for applying a colloidal oatmeal treatment product to a person""s skin. The applicator is formed from a porous material including cotton and cotton/polyester blends.
Despite these efforts, there is a continuing need for a delivery system that provides less mess and more convenience than the current delivery systems for topical skin care agents.
This invention relates to a delivery system for topical skin care agents. This delivery system comprises a topical skin care agent, a top layer and a bottom layer where at least one of said top layer and said bottom layer comprises an apertured film having protuberances therein, where said top layer and said bottom layer are attached to each other leaving a pouch between said top layer and said bottom layer, where said protuberances of said apertured film face said pouch, and where said pouch contains said topical skin care agent.